Joseph Campbell never witnessed the widespread influence of his life’s work. His most famous work, The Power of Myth, a conversation with the journalist Bill Moyers, was published posthumously. Campbell’s wife, Jean Erdman, later commented that Campbell wouldn’t have enjoyed fame all that much.
He was in it for the stories.That’s what led him to a life of mythology, reading about Native Americans as a young boy. When Moyers opens The Power of Myth with a question about the relevance of mythology in everyday life, Campbell replies that it just catches you. We’ve lost “the literature of the spirit,” he continues, we’re only concerned with the news and problems of the hour. This was thirty years ago.
But a long view of history and culture is essential, according to Campbell.
When the story is in your mind, then you see its relevance to something happening in your own life. It gives you perspective on what’s happening to you. With the loss of that, we’ve really lost something because we don’t have a comparable literature to take its place.
Fortunately we do have a literature of the spirit today, only for most people it takes place on a screen. How the story is transmitted is not as important as that it’s transmitted, however. The very problem that Campbell addresses made its way into last night’s premiere of Game of Thrones.
The montage of Samwell Tarly’s drudgery working as an intern at the Citadel—cleaning bedpans, serving bean soup, stacking books, books thrown at him; editing you won’t quickly forget—comes to a head when weighing organs for the Archmaester. Sam says he wants access to the restricted area. He was sent to the Citadel to learn how to defeat the White Walkers, which the stuffy academics in their pearly tower don’t believe in. Sam, though, has seen them.
What strikes most in this episode is the evolving maturity and confidence of certain characters: Jon Snow making adult decisions as king; Sansa Stark shutting down Littlefinger; Sam stealing keys…
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